Bob wrote:
If Stagecoach have had to agree to boost the number of seats at the
peak by 20/21% - how come the same provisions were not applied to FCC
thuis leading to the Thameslink shambles.

Goodness knows. At the last Q&A session with FCC, Elaine Holt pointed
out that they have no requirement to provide any new trains during
their franchise period. As the 13 trains they need for the Thameslink
branch are currently with Southern, they have pretty much said there's
nothing they can do. The DfT are left trying to sort something out, but
why wasn't there any requirement to build new rolling stock during the
next 9 years? The 313s, 317s and 319s will all be rather old by then!!
Even the 365s will be falling apart.

I guess the answer is money. FCC will be paying the Government money,
and new rolling stock would reduce this (ignoring the investment in
jobs, had it been possible to build stock in the UK). FCC keeps quoting
the £52m of investment, but that doesn't sound like much over the
franchise term.

Will the requirement to include Oyster compatability now be extended on
a franchise by franchise basis on all franchises that offer through
ticketing to London. If so why does the DfT not insist on the system
being used on say buses and trams in Manchester, Sheffield or
Nottingham - no point in investing in two incompatable systems? As they
say why take 2 bottles into the shower?

I hope that one day there will be a UK wide (maybe even Europe wide)
smart card system for ticketing. There's no physical reason for this
not happening, but you can be sure that there are many political
reasons!

If commuter services are moved to a zone based pricing system and
Oyster, or a proper international standard system, is introduced
throughout the southeast, it's a start. If things are done properly, it
should be relatively easy to update the hardware to accept other types
of card in the future so we're not stuck with something completely
non-standard (as Oyster appears to be).

I hope SWT are going to buy and install equipment that can be upgraded
easily!

Jonathan